Looking for advice. Possible bradycardia

You follow what your cardiologists advise, regards weight issues, you really need to be at the best weight you can, the cardio will advise you, also staying fit as you can.

Regards the pacemaker, if you need one you need one, hope you understand what I am saying.

Huband about 2 years ago, said to me he felt terrible, had problems walking from the kitchen to our bedroom to report this, this was 6am in the morning, 4am he had no issues, I pulled out our little BP & heatbeat monitor, and put the cuff on him, and hit the button, Blood pressure normal, heatbeat at 30BPM, even I figured out he needed to be at the heart hospital, made the decision to transport him myself, as I don't trust the local hospital, took him to the heart hospital in our city.

Got to admittance, told them heartbeat at 30, and got an answer, about why would I waste my time buying an Omron, that's the brand name of monitor, because the cardiologists told us tooo shouted back, I was stressed to the max.

after much huffing and puffing from hospital staff who felt I was making a fuss over nothing nurse came out and said whats all the noise about as she took his blood pressure, and heatbeat, she hit the red emergency button on the wall, and started demanding immediate help herself, I made a comment about the big hospital BP monitor agreeing with my little baby one, I got a snarl and sit down and shut up.

Admitted to hospital where after junior Dr's seemed to doubt he was as sick as he was, called in consultant, who agreed with me, growled at junior staff in front of us, and ordered immediate installation of three lead pacemaker and defib. 

Husband never been better since, has even improved his dialated cardiomyopathy which is the underlying cause of his 100% branch bundle block.

I am assuming that you have a partial branch bundle block, that is the nerves in your heart that give it the electrical pulse to make it beat, as the Dr's said to us, for some it never causes any problems, and for others it becomes life threatening, we just have to figure out which patient has which issue, and your ECG give them the start of the tests you need to identify your underlying issues, or have you just got unlucky and your nerve (branch Bundle) been affected.

I would think your next tests would be echocardiogram if considered serious enough, then from there, angiogram, x-rays, MRI's, lung function, husband has has all of these done, some multiple times, most of these tests tell them where he is at, does he need more tablets to help support his heart function. 

This time he will get growled at, next appt, in first week in July, he has put on more weight than the cardio's would like, I have taken it upon myself to put him on a diet, and am recording his weight loss in our diary of his health, I keep a kids school exercise book just like a nurses chart, and watch how he is doing.

He was orginally diagnosed 7 years ago with his heart condition, Dr's at the time were very upfront, and told me they felt he could not survive the infection/virus that apparently had attacked his heart, or at the most 30days, they were shocked when we turned up for 3 month checkup, Dr's said they never expected to see him.

Well here we are 7 years on, he is outside at the moment, looking at our beehive in the backyard, we are going to have our first harvest of honey, we have had a taste previously, but this time its going to be multiple frames, cannot believe it, even though it is winter, the bees are packing away the honey at a rate of knots.

Husband is cared for by one of the world's most senior electrophysiologists, Dr/Mr Denman at prince Charles hospital in Brisbane, he is brilliant, and a nice man, maybe not so nice to the staff, does not tolerate mistakes from his junior staff, as we have witnessed.

Overall can recommend that if the Dr says you need pacemaker, just say how soon, it has made husbands life so much the better.

In a similar boat... Bradycardia is not in itself bad.  it's really if you are symptomatic then something needs 'fixing' whether its a thyroid issue, a blockage, heart attack, etc.  only a doc can tell you that.  I was first dx'd with bradycardia in my early 20's and until a few weeks ago mostly asymptomatic.  Now I can't clear fluids and i'm exhausted seemingly all the time.  i had an echo and it's mostly fine.  Nothing enough wrong their would be a procedures or medicine.  I also had another 2 day holter monitor done and the results are in i think.  from what i read it's all just numbers.  I was thinking the doc who reviewed it would put some sort of synopsis of pathology or lack there of.  looking online there is nothing uniform in how hospitals do their reports which i find ridiculous but whatever.  As far as I can get I had a couple SVT whatever that is and I was in bradycardia over 25% of the time. 

ironically i was so anxious the entire time i was wearing the silly thing my HR was up 5 to 10 beats per min than it has been on for years as i have an apple watch that takes that information.  It matches the report. 

my resting hr is on average 42 last year it was 38 which i know is low.  when i was running a lot and 20 years younger that didn't bother me at all in fact I was quite pleased with myself that i had a resting HR of 35 to 39 and I trained based on VO2 methods thinking i was some sort of athlete Now of course I am out of shape and older and that low HR makes me wondering what is wrong.

I see the reg. doc. tomorrow the heart specialist never called and i haven't followed up due to busy work stuff and I'm so over doctors i could scream the water pill the one doc gave me helped a lot down 15 lbs of water.  i still have some retention late in the evening but it resolves overnight. 

I'm terrified they will say pacemaker which is why i know it's likely going to be fine just like the echo and other than the water pill and I'm good. that's what i'm hoping anyway. 

if you do a Holter study be weary of the tape!  the tech who put mine on this time round went tape crazy and I was too out of it to realize until I got home and two days with no showering and all that sticky tape made for a miserable time -- doesn't help that I am somewhat allergic to most adhesives.   

The Echocardiogram is easypeasy and you can watch.  Pretty interesting.  the other tests that Lyn mentioned.  I hope never to experience and for your sake you either.  they are more invasive well other than the mri. 

Diet and exercise are good for your heart but neither will 'fix' bradycardia.  If you have the time there's tons of info on the web and reliable places like Mayo clinic or the American Heart Association just google it! 

Good luck.

Don't panic. I am 40-year-old dealing with heart issues. I was very scared and disappointed about it at the beginning. Now I on medication due to raising heartbeats. It does not seem like normal palpitations. They have not found anything yet. But suggested me to take medication for it now. A pacemaker is not a scary thing to go for. But let your doctor explain it to you. Do some research on it.